African Union says preparing 3,000-troop deployment to Sahel

The African Union confirmed Thursday that it expected to send a temporary deployment of 3,000 troops to West Africa's Sahel region, where regional forces are struggling to respond to a nearly eight-year-old onslaught by armed Islamists.

The decision was made at the AU summit earlier this month, Smail Chergui, head of the AU's Peace and Security Commission, said at a press conference.

"On the decision of the summit to work on deploying a force of 3,000 troops to help the Sahel countries degrade terrorist groups, I think this is a decision that we'll be working on together with the G5 Sahel and ECOWAS," Chergui said.

"I think this decision has been taken because as we see, as you can recognise yourself, the threat is expanding, it's becoming more complex."